Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/619

Descriptions of Plants.] glabrum, apice depresso. Caryopsis crustacea, dimidio inferiore persistenti indurato tubi perianthii inclusa, striata apice dilatata in vaginulam brevem subcyathiformam extus pappigeram intus glabram. Semen fusiforme, membrana propria tenuissima apice chalaza fusca insignita. Albumen nullum. Embryo erectus subcylindraceus albus: Cotyledones brevissimæ semiorbiculatæ: Radicula maxima elongato-turbinata teres acuta: Plumula inconspicua.

Obs. Franklandia, though evidently belonging to Proteaceæ, differs from the whole of that family in at least three points of structure, any one of which may equally be assumed as the essential character of the genus; namely, in the antheræ being fixed through their whole length to the laciniæ of the perianthium; in the squamæ which alternate with the stamina so intimately cohering at their base with the lower half of the calyx that they appear to originate from its upper part; and in the induplicate æstivation of the laminæ of the hypocrateriform perianthium. In this last respect the genus presents an exception to what I had formerly considered as one of the most constant distinguishing characters of the order; it does not however so materially invalidate this character as a change to any other kind of æstivation would have done; the induplicate and valvular modes passing into each other, merely by an abstraction or addition of the elevated margins of the laciniæ. Instances of the abstraction of these elevated margins, in orders where they are generally present, are met with in Goodenoviæ and Convolvulaceæ, and an instance of their addition as in Franklandia occurs, though less obviously, in Chuquiraga, a genus belonging to Compositæ, in which family the valvular æstivation is as general as in Proteaceæ.

The æstivation of Franklandia may be adduced in support of that opinion which considers the floral envelope of Proteaceæ as corolla rather than calyx; there being, I believe, no instance of a similar æstivation in a genuine calyx, unless that of Nyctaginea be regarded as such: but a stronger argument for this envelope being really calyx is afforded also by Franklandia, in which the transition from the footstalk to the perianthium is so gradual as to be externally imperceptible, and is not marked either by any change or interruption of the surface.

The apparently similar origin in Franklandia of the stamina and squamæ affords an argument, in addition to what I have formerly stated, for con-